Sunday, 4 January 2015

The Badger’s Dissertation

My dear friends,

I have been away too long. I am coming back I promise.

In the meantime enjoy this little excerpt from one of my favourite books, The once and future king, by TH White. In it the young, soon to be King Arthur is learning about the world through conversation with the animals, an experience afforded to him by his mentor, Merlin. Here we join Arthur as he is learning about the creation myth from the perspective of a badger.

***

People often ask, as an idle question, whether the process of
evolution began with the chicken or the egg. Was there an egg out of
which the first chicken came, or did a chicken lay the first egg? I am
in a position to say that the first thing created was the egg.

When God had manufactured all the eggs out of which the fishes and
the serpents and the birds and the mammals and even the duck-billed
platypus would eventually emerge, He called the embryos before him, and
saw that they were good.

Perhaps I ought to explain,’ added the badger, lowering his papers
nervously and looking at Wart over the top of them, ‘that all embryos
look very much the same. They are what you are before you are born –
and, whether you are going to be a tadpole or a peacock or a
cameleopard or a man, when you are an embryo you just look like a
peculiarly repulsive and helpless human being. I continue as follows:

The embryos stood in front of God, with their feeble hands clasped
politely over their stomachs and their heavy heads hanging down
respectfully, and God addressed them.
He said: “Now, you embryos, here you are, all looking exactly the
same, and We are going to give you the choice of what you want to be.
When you grow up you will get bigger anyway, but We are pleased to
grant you another gift as well. You may alter any parts of yourselves
into anything which you think will be useful to you in later life. For
instance, at the moment you cannot dig. Anybody who would like to turn
his hands into a pair of spades or garden forks is allowed to do so.
Or, to put it another way, at present you can only use your mouths for
eating. Anybody who would like to use his mouth as an offensive weapon,
can change it by asking and be a corkindrill or sabre-toothed tiger.
Now then, step up and choose your tools, but remember that what you
choose you will grow into, and will have to stick to.”

“All the embryos thought the matter over politely, and then, one by
one, they stepped up before the eternal throne. They were allowed two
or three specializations, so that some chose to use their arms as
flying machines and their mouths as weapons, or crackers, or drillers,
or spoons, while others selected to use their bodies as boats and their
hands as oars. We badgers thought very hard and decided to ask for
three boons. We wanted to change our skins for shields, our mouths for
weapons and our arms for garden forks. These boons were granted.
Everybody specialized in one way or another, and some of us in very
queer ones. For instance, one of the desert lizards decided to swap his
whole body for blotting-paper, and one of the toads who lived in the
drouthy antipodes decided simply to be a water-bottle.

“The asking and granting took up two long days–they were the fifth
and sixth, so far as I remember–and at the very end of the sixth day,
just before it was time to knock off for Sunday, they had got through
all the little embryos except one. This embryo was Man.

” ‘Well, Our little man,’ said God. ‘You have waited till the last,
and slept on your decision, and We are sure you have been thinking hard
all the time. What can We do for you?’

” ‘Please God,’ said the embryo, ‘I think that You made me in the
shape which I now have for reasons best known to Yourselves, and that
it would be rude to change. If I am to have my choice I will stay as I
am. I will not alter any of the parts which You gave me, for other and
doubtless inferior tools, and I will stay a defenceless embryo all my
life, doing my best to make myself a few feeble implements out of the
wood, iron and the other materials which You have seen fit to put
before me. If I want a boat I will try to construct it out of trees,
and if I want to fly, I will put together a chariot to do it for me.
Probably I have been very silly in refusing to take advantage of Your
kind offer, but I have done my very best to think it over carefully,
and now hope that the feeble decision of this small innocent will find
favour with Yourselves.’

” ‘Well done,’ exclaimed the Creator in delighted tones. ‘Here, all
you embryos, come here with your beaks and whatnots to look upon Our
first Man. He is the only one who has guessed Our riddle, out of all of
you , and We have great pleasure in conferring upon him the Order of
Dominion over the Fowls of the Air, and the Beasts of the Earth, and
the Fishes of the Sea. Now let the rest of you get along, and love and
multiply, for it is time to knock off for the week-end. As for you,
Man, you will be a naked tool all your life, though a user of tools.
You will look like an embryo till they bury you, but all the others
will be embryos before your might. Eternally undeveloped, you will
always remain potential in Our image, able to see some of Our sorrows
and to feel some of Our joys. We are partly sorry for you, Man, but
partly hopeful. Run along then, and do your best. And listen, Man,
before you go . . .’

” ‘Well?’ asked Adam, turning back from his dismissal.

” ‘We were only going to say,’ said God shyly, twisting Their hands
together. ‘Well, We were just going to say, God bless you.’ ”

The Badger’s Dissertation, from Chapter 21 of The once and future king, TH White